pictures was "Madam Gwyn's picture, naked, with a Cupid," done by Lely, and concealed by a "sliding piece," a copy by Danckers of the Countess of Dorset, by Van Dyck.[1] Among the pictures "of Mr. Lely's doing" which Mrs. Beale, the painter, saw at Bap. May's lodgings at Whitehall, in April 1677, was "Mrs. Gwyn, with a lamb, half-length."[2] "Some years since," says Tom Davies, writing in 1784, "I saw at Mr. Berenger's house in the Mews a picture of Nell Gwyn, said to have been drawn by Sir Peter Lely; she appeared to have been extremely attractive."[3]
With the single exception of a too grave and thoughtful picture in the Lely room at Hampton Court, there is not a single picture of Nelly in any of the royal collections. When Queen Charlotte was asked whether she recollected a famous picture of Nell Gwyn, known to have existed in the Windsor gallery, and which Her Majesty herself was suspected of having removed, she replied at once "that most assuredly since she had resided at Windsor there had been no Nell Gwyn there."[4]
